Birthright
by Catherine4
Summary: Responce to gigetgirl's 'Beltane Babies' challenge. 6 kids born to the Scooby Gang 5 years ago. What does destiny have in store for them?


_Author's note: This is a response to GigetGirl's 'Beltane Babies' challenge. Plot ideas belong to her, and others on the CCS messageboard who inspired me! All original characters belong to Joss and Mutant Enemy. The kiddies however, are all mine!_

Chapter 1

Garret Harris didn't do angst. If he had learnt anything in his 5 short years of life, it was that moping about looking miserable would not get you anywhere. That was more Tilly's style.

Tilly Wells was not Garret's favourite person in the world. He strived to be unlike her in everyway possible. Which was hard when they were both so similar. It seemed that their fathers' rivalry had transcended generations, and struck the kids 10-fold. Despite the fact that they quite obviously didn't get on, they seemed to be stuck with each other most of the time.

Zoe and Cas couldn't be more different, but opposites attract. Cas always seemed to know what was going on, whereas half the time Zoe was away with the fairies. Cas spoke her mind and had a way of getting answers out of anyone, Zoe tended to let her get on with it, preferring to create her own versions of reality instead of knowing what was actually going on.

Garret liked Taro best of all. The only other boy in the house, he was the most fun to play with. He always had some plan brewing. Garret's favourite of all Taro's plans were ones involving Tilly, weapons, and large lengths of rope. Unfortunately, he never got to plan plans with Taro. He was not often alone. Lizzie had a habit of appearing at the most inappropriate moments and ruining a perfectly good ambush.

Lizzy was Taro's sister. His actual sister, not just 'sister' in the sense that they all got lumped together as brothers and sisters just because they were the same age. God, if he was blood related to Matilda, Garret thought he might go mad. Where Lizzy was, there were usually more following. More boys. Although none of them were interested in helping him deal with Tilly. They were too busy thinking Lizzie and her 'sisters' were wonderful.

Which they most definitely weren't. What could be wonderful about anyone who brooded over a lost hair clip. That's what Tilly was currently doing, walking around the swings in a strop because she couldn't find her favourite hair accessory. She was their resident little fashion victim, every bit Dawn's daughter.

"Hey Mister, tormenting Til again eh?"

Faith appeared behind her son and made him jump. He thought for a moment, before giving his Mum hi answer. "Erm, no?" He didn't sound sure.

"I should hope not." Faith didn't sound sure either. She winked at him. His Dad wanted him to be a gentleman. He may not have liked Tilly's Dad, but Xander was determined that his loathing of Andrew didn't effect his boy. Faith on the other hand, was trying to install some fighting instinct in Garret. Their radically different approaches to parenting may have not worked well on paper but to Garret, it was perfect. Playing your parents off against each other was the best thing ever! Taro & Lizzy had that opportunity as well, only they were both too preoccupied to fully appreciate the perks of having parents at war.

Only one of the twinss' parents was here. At least he had a bit more time to think of reasons to convince them to try.

Wesley looked up at his daughter. Or rather, where he knew her to be, in the sandbox. Only a bouncy blonde ponytail was visible above the crowd of heads surrounding her. Male heads. 5 year old male heads, but male nonetheless. Wesley cringed. Lizzy worried him. He didn't like to think about it too much, or he'd never let her leave the house. He'd tried his best to get her interested in other things, but all she cared about was boys. Her mother was no help. Anya thought it was 'cute'

Wesley glanced over at his other child. Taro was lying on the grass only a few feet away from Lizzy, perfectly still and perfectly quiet. When Taro was doing nothing was the time to be most concerned. It meant he was plotting something. Wesley tried to avoid that happening as much as possible, Taro's plans gave him panic attacks.

"Boys do stuff" was all Anya said on the subject, "let him have his adventures."

Why did Anya leave him to the heart attack-inducing side of parenting? Why didn't he get to be the calm, carefree dad that Spike seemed to be? It hardly seemed fair. He'd been given two kids. Two. And the most worrying two at that.

He glanced over at Zoe Giles, walking around the perimeter of the playground, picking daisies out of the grass. He smiled, why couldn't he have her as a daughter? As if on cue, Zoe, not looking where she was going, walked straight into the fence.

Right, that was why.

"Aww baby, are you Ok?" Willow rushed past Wesley over to her little girl. Willow had got a lot fitter in the last 5 years, rushing to Zoe's aid whenever she hurt herself or wandered into harms way. The typically clumsy little girl never had her mind and her body in the same place at the same time. Which lead to bumps, bruises and stained cloths various.

Willow picked Zoe up off the floor and looked into her bright green eyes. "Where does it hurt?"

"Nowhere." She may be accident-prone but she also seemed to be immune to pain. Monks high in the Tibetan mountains spend their lives trying to reach a spiritual plane free from human sensations. Zoe had managed it from the moment she'd left the womb.

Willow brow furrowed. Zoe gave her a grin, her eyes focusing for just a second before becoming glazed again, and staring off into the distance.

Willow felt a tap on her shoulder. "Don't worry Aunt Willow, I'll make sure she doesn't get into any major accidents." Cas nodded at Willow, doing her best to look serious, but Willow wasn't convinced. Maybe she just worried too much. She knew that Cas & Zoe made the perfect team and neither little girl would let anything happen to the other. It was hard to believe looking at Cas that she could protect anything. But this pint-sized little monster was a lot tougher than she looked. She'd inherited her mother's slayer instinct as well as her height.

Casamina Summers was extremely alert. What Zoe lacked in self-awareness, Cas made up for. She was very observant, creepily so. There was no hiding anything from Cassy, and if she saw you doing something you shouldn't you'd know about it straight away. She made a fantastic early warning system when Garret had something aimed at the back of Tilly's head.

The only person she didn't tell tails on was Zoe. Which worried Willow and Giles because they never quite knew what their daughter was up to. Willow was 'in charge' of both girls today, which was easier than it sounded because they were never far from one another. The sun was shining, that put Spike out of Minding Duty right away. And Buffy was off somewhere with Anya doing slayer things.

Cas had wanted to go with her, Cas always wanted to go with her. Of the children in their odd little 'family' there were 2 slayer offspring. They both had slayer traits, but they manifested themselves in very different ways. Garret appeared to have gained all Faith's 'Bad Slayer' aspects. The cunning, pre-meditating traits. Where as Cas just wanted to fight things. Willow had ended up putting a very powerful guard spell on the weapons cabinet to keep the little slayer wannabe out. She was sure Cas would find a way to break it soon enough. Willow was not totally sure if it would work, knowing her Cas had probably hard her perform it and was just waiting for the right moment.

Over by the swings, Tilly was still on her hunt for the missing hair clip. She couldn't be seen in public with only one. It was like combining spots and stripes. Unthinkable. Besides, her head felt all unbalanced. She crouched down and began looking on the other side of the swing area.

She momentarily glanced up, looking towards the jungle gym while simultaneously pretending she wasn't. She was well aware that Garret was spying on her. She was equally aware that he was probably accusing her of sulking. She wasn't sulking. He was just deep in detective mode. When there was a fashion disaster to be averted, there was no room for niceties.

Tilly knew what her family thought of her. 'Drama Queen' and 'Fashion Victim' being two commonly used terms. She knew peoples opinions of her and had no intention at all of changing them. What did it matter anyway? She knew they were wrong.

It wasn't that clothes and shoes and accessories were the most important things in life, it's just that they ranked fairly high up her list. Somewhere between finding her Mom's secret perfume collection and getting one up on Garret.

But right now, the whereabouts of her other purple sequined hair slide took priority. Deciding that it wasn't by the swings after all, she made her way to the slide where Cas was helping Zoe pick flowers. Tilly thought that strange. Cas never picked flowers.

"Hey, have you seen my clip?"

"Yep, it's there." Cas pointed to the floor near the steps of the slide and sure enough, it was lying there on the ground. Trust her to find it. Tilly was glad her cousin paid attention.

Tilly picked up the clip and waved it in the air triumphant. Just then there was a yelp. Taro had one of Lizzie's admirers in a headlock.

"Right." Wesley stood up trying his best to be assertive. "Kids, we're leaving. Now."

_R&R please! I'm a feedback junkie! I may continue, not sure! Let me know what you think._


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